Falling
by Arin Blaire
Summary: Set during Fearless. What if Chuck fell? Muck, kind of.
1. Chapter 1

_So, I thought this up while watching Fearless. Am I kicked out of the fandom yet? Written for agent-lawler, 'cause she loves angst._

**Falling**

It was in the middle of an everyday battle between KaneCo and the Burners. Julie and Texas were fighting off the bots, Tenny and Dutch were finishing repairs to the Cabler's security system, and Mike and Chuck were trying to deactivate the robots. Of course, "deactivating" normally did not include Chuck dangling upside down about thirty feet from the closest platform with only Mike keeping a firm grip on his ankle to prevent him from falling to his doom, but this was a special circumstance. Thankfully, Chuck had done it multiple times, so Mike wasn't super worried.

Until the unthinkable happened, his grip slipped, and Chuck actually fell. Down, down, down, breaking through the wires that were supposed to prevent Chuck from falling from any unreasonably high distance and unto the platform thirty feet below, with his bones making a sickening snap as he hits the metal.

And to this day, Mike will never forget the sound that Chuck made as he was falling. It was a sound of utter terror, of sheer panic that seemed to fly over the battle that was raging around them and bury itself into Mike's heart, making his breath seize up, his muscles lock and his eyes widen in panic. However, the scariest part of Chuck's cry was not the terror, nor the panic, but the faintest trace of hope that could be heard. Hope that Mike would somehow miraculously snatch him out of the sky and deposit him back on solid ground, making some witty comment as he did so. Hope that they could laugh this off as one of those times that he was being ridiculous and that they had nothing to worry about. Hope that he wasn't going to die.

Of course, those hopes were crushed in the 5 seconds it took to hit the platform, with his body crumpling in on itself from landing on his shoulders, his lower spine snapping from the force of the collision, and his skull cracking open and bleeding onto the metal platform.

Mike watched the scene from his vantage point way up above, dangling off of his weapon that was lodged into the column of wires, seeing but not comprehending as his best friend plummeted to his near certain death. Only after Chuck hit the platform and his body stilled was Mike able to shake out of his shock and begin propelling himself down the base of the wire tower via the traitorous broken cables that couldn't break Chuck's fall, being reckless and stupid and everything Chuck hates and fuck what is he supposed to do if he loses Chuck, the one thing that has tried to keep him alive this past year?

Mike couldn't bring himself to answer that.

In record time, Mike is at Chuck's side, babbling and fumbling for the first aid knowledge that he learned from Kane Co. Who would've thought that time spent in that place would've been useful? He vaguely remembers his instructors saying that if there was a head injury involved, don't move the person, or something like that. Ok, he could do that. What was next? Find a pulse? CPR? No, pulse. He needed to find a pulse. Fumbling for Chuck's neck, his fingers prodded against the dark blue bruises that were forming around his thin neck that Mike hadn't realized was so fragile until a few moments ago. For a second he paused, worried that he might be hurting Chuck, but when the blond didn't react, his fears were increased tenfold. Wasn't it a bad thing that Chuck wasn't waking up in response to pain? Mike couldn't remember. And he still couldn't find a pulse.

Then for one heart-shattering moment, Mike was afraid that he would never find one.

And then the whole reality of the situation came crashing down on him. He realized all of the things he would lose and all of the opportunities he would miss if Chuck were to die in that moment. He never really had gotten around to telling Chuck how he felt, had he? He had always thought he would have all the time in the world to tell Chuck. To let him know that over the year that they had known each other, Chuck had steadily become one of the most important things in his life, filling the void that leaving Kane Co. had created in his heart. And that he would miss having Chuck there to make him chuckle. Or to remind him that he needed to slow down. Or to not jump that ramp because they only have a twelve percent chance of survival.

And that hit home hard.

With a renewed vigor, Mike looked for a pulse and, by some miracle or fate, he managed to locate it, sighing with relief when he felt the faint, irregular beat of a heart on the verge of stopping. And then his panic was renewed all over again.

"_Mike_!" a voice interrupted, and Julie's icon appeared next to his head. "_Mike, are you there? Kane's men were driven back, thanks to Chuck's program. Where _is_ Chuck?_"

Snapping into leader mode, Mike replied, "Julie, get here as quickly as you can and bring the Burners. Also, if there are any doctors nearby that aren't tending to the wounded, bring them as well. Chuck's hurt. Gravely. I don't know if he'll make it." There was a pause on the other line, a moment to process the information, and then a shaky intake of breath.

"_Ok, we are on our way. Don't move him. Just see if you can wake him up. Tex, Dutch, a couple doctors and I are coming._" And with that, her icon disappeared and Mike was left with trying to wake up his best friend alone.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity of poking and prodding, Chuck finally emits a groan and his eyebrows knit together in pain. Hope flared in the pit of Mike's stomach.

"Chuck!" he cried, severely tempted to hug the blond, but sane enough to know that that was a bad idea on top of a bad idea. What if he worsened Chuck's wounds? Well, that was a risk he wasn't willing to take, so, he settled for fretting as Chuck's eyelids slowly slid open, hands hovering, ready to stop whatever bleeding he had to or support whatever needed supporting.

And the glassy look in Chuck's eyes was giving him the creeps. It was foggy and serene and everything Chuck wasn't, and that terrified Mike to the core.

Where was Julie?

To take his mind off his worry, he tried to make small conversation with Chuck. "Hey, Chuckles," he said softly, attempting to be soothing. A groan answered his greeting. Licking his lips, he tried again. "Hey, everything is gonna be alright, yeah? Jules is on the way with some doctors and they're gonna patch you up and then it'll be just like old times. You and me, in Mutt, fighting Kane, with you screaming and telling me to slow down. Hey! How about from now on, I slow down, yeah? You'll stay with me, and I'll take it easy on the gas. I'll slow down and you'll be happy and safe and can fire off random facts that I ignore anyways. How does that sound?" He knew that at this point, he was rambling, but who cared as long a Chuck stayed awake and alive.

And at that moment, a viscous series of coughs ripped through Chuck's lungs and blood splattered onto Mike's face. Chuck's blood, blood that should still be inside of Chuck. And it was then that Mike noticed the pool of blood around them, soaking into Mike's pants and staining Chuck's back. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. It was supposed to be like all of those old movies, where there would be little blood and everyone would look really pretty, and there would be monologues and rain and it would be dramatic and then miraculously, the person would survive and everything would be okay and it would be a false alarm.

Chuck opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no words came out, only a string of gargled noises. Then, with no warning or indication, Chuck's mouth stopped moving and his eyes stopped roaming and the world stopped rotating and everything went still. Still like Chuck's pulse and still like Mike's heart.

Movement ceased to exist.

Then suddenly, there are hands moving him away, and people crowd around Chuck's body, and some of them look like they know what they are doing. He can feel the presence of something, or someone, or a group of someones, crowding around him. He figures it's the other Burners, but all he can see is Chuck's still face, gazing unseeing up at the wire tower.

Suddenly, a warm pair of thin arms encircles his waist and he realizes that he's cold. Cold to the bone, and shivering, or is that shock? It doesn't matter. All that matters is his best friend is dead and it's all his fault. His fault for being reckless and stupid. Then, a second pair of lean arms encircles his shoulders and then he is covered by a third pair that surrounds the other arms and shuts the group off from the world. He can hear breathing and sobbing, mostly from Julie and surprisingly from him. He didn't even feel the tears slipping down his cheeks, doesn't register the sobs that wrack his body.

All he knows is that his world shrunk to the three people surrounding him and their shared grief. And then he slowly slipped into unconsciousness, unsure of whether he wanted to wake up again or not.

_Should I write an epilogue? Just wondering! Tell me what you think!_


	2. Epilogue

_So, I finally got around to writing the Epilogue! Yay! :D I hope you enjoy it!_

_Oh! Btw, I don't own Motorcity :)_

The funeral took place a week after the accident. With no living family and only a small scope of friends, it was a quiet ceremony, consisting mostly of the Burners and Chuck's LARPing friends, along with the odd person here or there that no one really knew, but who came to pay their respects anyway. Although they all knew Chuck differently, each mourned the loss of the boy who, while not always the toughest or the fastest, would always want to help those who asked for it. For all of her spunk and attitude, Ruby cried as though she was trying to bring Chuck to life with her tears, while Thurman stood stoically in the back, physically keeping Ruby upright and offering whatever emotional support he could offer, as he himself was coping with his own grief. Jacob, playing parent of the group, wandered around from person to person, offering each a token of comfort: a pat on the shoulder here, a hug there, and surprisingly, it helped. And despite being the chief planner of the funeral, all Julie could do was watch the proceedings and cling to Texas as the man she had considered her little brother was placed in his coffin, surrounded by wires and photos and everything he cared about, with his King of the Realm pin attached to his suit jacket. Texas, on the other hand, was Texas and he cried as if he was in an old time soap opera, though he would later claim that they were manly tears of grief. And Dutch, with tears stinging his eyes but none falling, held Tenny around the shoulders as she wept for the man who had saved her home and her people.

Out of the whole bunch, however, Mike was the worst off, doing nothing as Jacob performed the service and the Burners gave their speeches, his eyes unseeing and his ears unhearing. He said nothing and felt nothing and when everyone else left, he was the one standing beside Chuck's grave, staring at the name scrawled across the metal cross. And in that moment, something in him clicked and he sank to his knees, bowing his head and crying like he had never cried before.

After that, things began to change. He started to drive slowly, barely going over 60 miles per hour, because that was a speed Chuck would enjoy. He started wandering aimlessly around Motorcity like what he used to do with Chuck, instantly zeroing in on anyone with blond hair and then having his heartbroken every time when it wasn't _him_. A few times, he visited where Chuck fell, staring at the faint stain of Chuck's blood on the metal and wondering why it had to be Chuck and not him. He even considered quitting the Burners, but instantly rejected the idea. Even though his best friend and love was dead, that didn't mean he could just quit his other friends and watch them die too. No, he stayed and fought, but there was no longer that fire in his eyes, no longer that extra skip in his step. His eyes were the eyes of a man who had lost everything.

The other Burners saw the whole change, the shift in views and personality, but all they could do was watch. At first, they tried to talk to him, to make him feel better, because while they all loved Chuck and mourned for his loss, they knew Mike was taking the worst of it. But whenever they tried to talk to him, it would take him minutes to realize that they were even there, and even then, he said very little. Eventually, they realized that only time would heal his wounds, and they left him to deal with his heartache alone, though never far away in case he needed them.

Finally, the fateful day came where it was just Kane versus Mike. The other Burners were busy fighting off Kane's goons (after a whole dramatic interlude where Kane realized his own daughter was one of the Burners) and Mike and Kane were on top of Kane's tower, fighting hand to hand. Mike's speed and agility were matched only by Kane's brute strength, making it a stalemate of sorts. The prospects were not looking good, and Mike was out of ideas, panting and bleeding and looking around for something to use, and if only Chuck was there… And then, for the first time in months, there was a fire in Mike's eyes as an idea struck him, and he began to laugh. Laugh like he had never laughed before, wild and crazy, and everybody was confused until suddenly Mike tackles Kane and they begin to roll, roll, roll until they reached the edge, and the Burners could see where this was going but were too far away to react, and then, Mike and Kane roll off the edge, plummeting to certain death.

The cries of the Burners could be heard from all around.

However, if they had just looked over the edge, they would have seen the content smile that wormed its way onto Mike's face as he was falling, because not only had he saved Deluxe and Motorcity, but he could finally see his best friend again.

And to this day, the man who smiled in death can be found buried next to his best friend, their story never forgotten.

**The End**

_So… it's over! Yay? I'm sorry, if it was kinda somber! Forgive me? Am I kicked out of the fandom? Like/reblog!_


End file.
